One month later.
Clover had integrated with the crew well. Everyone seemed to like her, especially Steve who seemed very happy to have a normal child abroad the ship. Rowan had come to terms with Clover being here now and although he didn't peculiarly like Clover; he didn't dislike her either. Clover and Knives had become good friends over the past month, they spend a lot of time together. Knives taught Clover more academic structures, while Clover taught Knives things about Earth. Mostly things Earth children did for fun. Of course it's not to say that Vash and Clover didn't get along. They got along prefectly well with each other. In fact one would say the only reason Clover and Knives get along better is because she met Knives first; knives was the one who awakened her. Clover also loved spending time with Rem. She learned much from her and had turned into her mother-figure.
It was a pretty usual day on the S.E.E.D.S ship. The only interesting thing happening today was the fact that all the children were getting their hair cut. Rem had just finished finished cutting Clover's hair. Before her hair had went down to the middle of her back like the boy's but now...
Rem unhooked the straps of the cloth that kept the old hair off of Clover's clothes. "Now your hair should be a lot more managable." Rem said giving her, her signature warm smile.
"I want to see!" Clover said grabbing the mirror that Rem handed her. Her hair now reached slightly past her shoulders and was layered to take some of the volume off it. Clover had such thick hair that it was hard to comb it sometimes. Clover stared at her new hair and smiled. "I look older now!" She mused. Rem giggled slightly but kept her smile.
"Wow, you look nice!" Vash said to Clover as he walked over to the chair it get his own hair done. The comment made Clover smile brightly before she went over to sit with Knives. Knives stared at Clover's new hair cut but said nothing. He was acting strange lately. He'd stopped hanging out with the three of them as much and was spending more and more time alone.
"What do you think of my hair cut?" Clover asked Knives happily, fishing for a compliment.
Knives glanced at her and said seldomly, "It looks fine..." before going back into his thoughts. Clover frowned at him before turning back to watch Rem cut Vash's hair. She cut it above his shoulders before cutting it into what Clover could only describe as a broom shape. After she was done with his hair she called out to Knives to cut his hair next. Clover looked over to her left but found Knives wasn't there.
The next day the whole crew sat down for a meal together. All three of the children had their hair cut but Knives had did his own hair. Clover thought it looked better then Vash's strange hair cut.
"That's a wonderful hair cut Knives." Rem praised Knives kindly.
"Thank you. As strange as it may sound, I actually feel... refreshed." Knives replied to her.
Mary giggled before saying, "You know you look very intellectual."
"Why you look like a regular little philospher." Rowan chimed in
"What do I look like?" Vash asked excitedly. To which all the crew except Steve said,
"A momma's boy." Everyone shared laughter while Vash said how we were all mean. The fun times were quickly interrupted by Steve, who slammed his beer down on the counter.
"I'm surprised you can all be eating at the same table as those little monsters." Steve said with a wicked look on his face.
"Steve, I think you've had one too many." Mary said worriedly.
"No I haven't baby." Steve replid groping her breast after he walked over from the counter to the table.
"Hey, Steve come on. Don't you have some work to do some place else?" Rowan said trying to get Steve off of Mary.
"Oh shut up Poindexter! I can always do that later." Steve said still hanging all over Mary.
"You're a disgrace." Knives said out of nowhere. He was glaring intensely at Steve. "Now is that any way for a grown man to act in the presence of innocent children?"
Them both glared tensionly at each other before Steve broke out into manic laugter and exited the dinning area.
"He sure has been acting crazy lately." Mary commented still on edge even after he left.
"That's because he's afraid." Knives replied darkly before taking a drink out of his coffee mug.
Two days later
Clover and Knives were together in the rec room alone. Clover had always felt closer to Knives then Vash simply because he awoken her. However, personality-wise she liked Vash a lot more. She wasn't sure how Vash felt about her, though. On the other hand... she assumed Knives must like her a lot to get in trouble to wake her up.
"Do you like me?" She asked Knives as they walked around.
Knives was caught off-guard by the question. "Besides Vash you're the only one on this ship I care for." Knives replied to her honestly. His answer made her extremely happy.
"I like you two." She said to him with a bright smile before leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek.
"What was that?" Knives asked her with a shocked glare before putting a hand against his cheek.
"That's what people on Earth do to prople they like, silly!" She said with a giggle. "If you really like someone you kiss them on the mouth!" Clover said finally.
Knives stopped dead in his tracks and turned to Clover and stared at her.
"What's wrong?" She asked him concerned. Knives closed the space between them and gave her a peck on the lips before backing away. Clover blushed but smiled at his sudden kiss.
A few hours later
"Can you tell me more about Earth?" Vash asked Clover eagerly.
"I don't know anything more." Clover said honestly. She had basically told him everything she coud about Earth and her life there. Vash gave her an oh, but said nothing else. They sat in silence for a little while and in that silence Clover couldn't help but think about how much she liked both Knives and Vash. She was trying to think which of them she liked better but she couldn't really decide. In her little girl mind she came up with a plan to find out which she liked better. She had watched some movies back home about women choosing her boyfriend by how good of a kisser they were. She decided to put it into practice.
"I know something I can show you." Clover said to Vash with a bright smile. "On Earth to say that we like someone; we kiss them!"
"Kiss?" Vash repeated having no idea what it was.
"Yeah! This is what you do: Put your mouth against my mouth and hold it there for a few seconds and then stop." Clover explained to him her version of kissing.
"Oh, I should do that with Rem, then!" Vash said happy that he had learned a new way to show her how much he cared for her.
Clover frowned at his mention of Rem, she was hoping that he would kiss her like Knives did but that wasn't the case. She had to take matters into her own hands, then. She grabbed Vash's face and made him look at her before kissing him. In the middle of their kiss they heard the door open.
"Oh there you guys-" Knives stopped in the middle of his sentence as he saw the kiss. There was an awkward silence all around until Knives turned around without a word and walked away.
"Hey, Knives wait!" Vash called out to him. He got off of Clover's bed and ran after his brother out the door.
Clover pouted on her bed. Her kiss with Vash was interrupted and she couldn't help but feel as if Knives didn't like that she had kissed Vash.
One hour later
Clover had been taking a shower in her room when she heard gun shots. Back on Earth you heard a lot of these things, there was no mistaking it. Clover ducked down in the shower and covered her head in fear. Her parents had always told her if she heard gun shots she was to get on the floor and stay there until they came to get her.. After paralyzing fear for a few minutes Clover finally worked up the courage to step out of the shower. She dried herself off quickly and put on a change of clothes. She didn't dare go out of her room. She was going to wait until one of the crew came to get her. After about a half an hour of waiting there was another single gun shot. Clover had no idea what was going on, she was extremely frightened and too young to compherend what was going on. A minute later an alarm went off and a computerized voice kept repeating, "Please proceed to the escape pods!"
Vash, Knives and Rem
"Rem! What's the matter?!" Vash called out to Rem from inside the escape pod. Rem was standing outside of the escape pod lost in thought.
"You two go on ahead!" Rem yelled to them over the blaring alarm. She grabbed and twisted the handle to close the ship from the outside.
"I don't understand what you mean! Why?!" Vash cried out to her desperately.
"I can't leave Joey and Clover here by themselves. I have to find a way to save the others."
"But the program is already running!" Knives called out to her.
"You've got to come with us Rem! Please don't leave us!" Vash pleaded to her.
"I'm sorry, Vash. If Alex were alive I believe in my heart, he would do the same thing." Tears started to spill from her eyes as she said her good byes. "Vash, take care of Knives. Don't worry." Vash caught the last glimspe of Rem he ever saw as the doors closed to the escape pod closed and they were launched into space.
As soon as the pod door closed Rem ran straight towards Clover's room. She found her sitting on her bed with tears streaming down her eyes. "Clover, you have to get out of here!" Rem cried out to her. They both ran as fast as they could to a locker with suits designed for this sort of situation. "Clover, I don't have any time to take you to the shuffles myself." Rem said kneeling down to her level and looking into her eyes. She then proceeded to quickt tell Clover where to go. She gave her a quick hug before they both ran opposite ways.
Clover did her best to remember where to go. She found the escape pods and they were already launching. The last pods door was closing, she had no choice but to run as fast as she could to and dive into it. She narrowly made it before the door closed and it launched into space. The pod was on a course to the planet below and as Clover stared out of the escape pod's window she saw the place that she had called home for the last time as it exploded. Tears welled up in her eyes once again as she realized that she may truly be alone this time and not know for how long.
End of Chapter Two
Authors Notes:
Sorry that this took so long but well at least I didn't give up on the story. Please tell your friends and spread this story around because the more support I have the more encouraged I feel to keep writing! Reuploaded to fix spelling and grammar errors.